


We Talk Just Like Lions, But We Sacrifice Like Lambs

by littlemel



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Domestic Bliss, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-27
Updated: 2015-01-27
Packaged: 2018-03-09 06:40:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3240023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlemel/pseuds/littlemel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Change is inevitable, but nothing ever really changes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Talk Just Like Lions, But We Sacrifice Like Lambs

**Author's Note:**

> I am appalled at how long ago I started this, but at least I finished it? With thanks to [](http://ciel-vert.livejournal.com/profile)[**ciel_vert**](http://ciel-vert.livejournal.com/) for the read-through and help getting to the end, and to [](http://wrisomifu.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://wrisomifu.livejournal.com/)**wrisomifu** for making me poke around my WIP folder in the first place. Whoever's birthday I started this for last year, um, I'm sorry it's late? Title from "Round Here" by Counting Crows. Originally posted November 16, 2009.

Coffee without a cigarette is blasphemy as far as Frank's concerned, especially first thing in the morning. So he takes his mug and his Camels--he's not supposed to smoke in the house anymore--and goes to sit on the back steps.

He'll piss and moan about it all winter, when he's got to put on boots and gloves and a jacket just to have a smoke, but when the weather's warm it's actually kind of nice to have an excuse just to sit in the sun for a couple minutes.

Jamia's still upstairs, asleep. They'd both woken up earlier when a car alarm went off somewhere down the street, and spooning had turned into groping, and groping had turned into the kind of slow, lazy fuck you can only have on Sunday mornings before the neighbors are even up for church. Flexing into her easy-deep, her hair stuck to his lips, and she made this high, gasping sort of sound when she came, her hand over his between her legs.

The ticklish spot behind Jamia's ear is Frank's favorite; the lightest huff of breath against it makes her sigh and squirm, even in her sleep. But an edge of teeth will make her moan and press into him, reach a hand back to curve it over his hip. That's how it started, earlier. Frank lights his cigarette around a grin.

They fight a lot when he's on the road. They get lonely and mean and their words grow teeth, claws. They scream and hiss and hang up on each other, but they always make up. First in teary phone calls, and then again when he gets home, in desperate, sweaty fumbles on the bedroom floor; the door kicked shut against the barking dogs and Jamia's panties thumbed aside, her jacket still on. Biting and clinging and quick, leaving them shaking and breathless.

They fight when he's home, too, but they fight about dirty dishes and taking out the trash and who did or didn't feed the dogs. It's different.

He would've stayed in bed with her all day, happily tucked up behind her with his arm thrown over her belly and his nose in her hair, but his bladder kept waking him up, and the dogs were getting restless anyway. He grumped against Jamia's shoulder, squeezed her hip lightly before throwing back the blankets. She grabbed at him sleepily when he sat up, making unhappy noises into her pillow. It was all Frank could do to put his feet on the floor, but he _had_ to piss, and now the dogs had seen him up they were pacing circles by the door, their tails high.

Frank settles on the middle step, his toes in the damp grass, and squints across the yard as he exhales. It's a big, bright summer morning, all blue sky and sunshine. Quiet, since it's kind of early; just birds and bugs and the dogs, scattered around the yard. Sinatra and Bela are playing tug-of-war with a rope toy--Sinatra's winning, but Bela's putting up a hell of a fight. Texas is digging by the fence again, and Mama's peeing on the tomato plants. The rest of the pack is already inside, probably sleeping in sunbeams.

The door squeaks open behind him and Frank only has time to turn halfway before Jamia's plunking down on the step above him. Her arms go around his middle and her legs on either side of his, her red toenails peeking out from under the shredded hem of her sweats.

"Morning." She makes grabby hands at his coffee, and Frank laughs as he hands it off. She kisses his cheek. "Been up long?"

Frank shakes his head. "Half hour-ish?"

Jamia nods, and they swap the coffee for his cigarette, wordlessly. Mindless and easy, and he loves that about them, loves all the tiny, effortless ways they move and fit and work together, that make up all the bigger, important ways. Because every time Frank comes home, something's different: Jamia's cut her hair or his uncle's grown a beard, or there's a Starbucks where the Hallmark store used to be. Little things, that don't really mean anything.

Still, sometimes they nag at him, lingering in his head and his gut for days. Like the squeeze in his chest whenever he drives by his mom's old house. The one he grew up in, with the basement where he had his very first band practice and smoked his first cigarette with Hambone and lost his virginity to Jenny Camilleri. The new owners painted it white, tore up the shrubs under the front windows and put up a fence. It bothers him, that it isn't how he remembers it.

But mostly things are exactly the same. The hostess at the diner still seats them in the corner booth, there's still construction on 287, and Sunday night dinner is still at his mom's house. And this, his wife and his dogs and his own bed. Smiles and kisses and wagging tails, the smell of Jamia's lotion on the sheets. Her red toenails--for as long as he's known her, she's only and ever painted them red--and those old, ratty sweats she flatly refuses to throw out, despite the ever-expanding hole near the crotch. Frank smiles and drapes his arms over Jamia's thighs, runs a hand up her calf.

He leaves again on Tuesday for three weeks, and Jamia doesn't have any more time off at work. Three weeks isn't so bad--they've done longer--but a lot can happen in three weeks. A lot can change. _Anything_ can change.

Sometimes, when it's late-late and he can't sleep, when he's been gone too long (it's always too long, always) and they're coming off a nasty fight, he burrows in and mouths an _I'm sorry_ against her shoulder. As much as he loves playing music for a living, it's a demanding mistress, that makes him an absent husband to a lonely wife. On the surface, at least, they're his parents all over again. And that pretty much scares the shit out of him.

"Wanna go to the diner?" Jamia asks, taking another drag of the cigarette before passing it back to him. Frank holds out the coffee mug but she shakes her head, exhales and nuzzles the side of Frank's neck. Her breath tickles the ends of his hair and he shivers, giggles. "I want pancakes."

Frank squinches up his face. He almost never says no to the diner--and he wouldn't say no now, except, "Sunday morning crowd."

"Ugh, right." Jamia hooks her chin over his shoulder. "Frozen waffles and facon?"

"Yeah," Frank says slowly. He starts to say something else, something sappy about being home, or to apologize for not running the dishwasher last night like Jamia asked him to, or maybe just that he loves her. Same difference, really. But he just palms her knee instead, sucking one last drag from his cigarette before stubbing it out in the overflowing ashtray.

Tonight is family dinner, and tomorrow they have to do grown-up things like go to the bank and the post office and talk about that thing that came in the mail from the insurance company; then dinner with Jamia's family and drinks with the whole gang at Gina's, and then he's gone again Tuesday morning. So the next handful of hours is all the time they really get to themselves before he leaves, and it's just- it's not enough, it never is. He turns and kisses her mouth, still toothpaste-minty beneath the tang of coffee and cigarettes.

"I'm sorry." Sometimes he has to say it out loud.

Jamia pulls back, laughs. "What, about the diner? It's fine!"

For a second Frank thinks about shaking his head, telling her, _no, that's not what I meant_ and getting into the whole mess and tangle of it, but it's a gorgeous day and he's got nothing to do for the rest of the afternoon but laze around the house with her. He doesn't want to waste it on guilt.

"Yeah? You're sure?"

"We'll go on the way to the airport on Tuesday," she says with a shrug. "And this way I don't have to get dressed."

"Okay." After breakfast, he decides, he's gonna chase her back to bed and lock the dogs out of the room. Suddenly he's ravenous. "Can I help with the facon or am I on microwave probation?"

"You're _always_ on microwave probation," Jamia deadpans. Frank scoffs, mock-offended. "But I _guess_ I could let you have a supervised visit."

"Or I can make another pot of coffee," Frank says. "I've never blown up the coffeemaker."

"You wouldn't dare. That thing is way too precious to you."

"Hmm, true."

Jamia stands up and offers Frank her hand. He grabs his mug and his lighter and lets her help him up, ducking in for a quick kiss once he's on his feet. Jamia's fingers curl in his shirt, too tight, holding too hard.

"I'm just really glad you're home for a few days," Jamia says, hiding her face in his neck. "I missed you."

Frank's breath catches a little when he inhales, snagging behind his ribs for a skipped heartbeat before he can clear his throat around it. "I missed you too." He takes Jamia's hand, pushes his fingers between hers and kisses her again, softer.

They talk every day when he's on tour, send each other dozens of sappy texts and stupid pictures, and on the nights he can find enough time and space to himself, he calls late and talks her through getting herself off, biting his lip and pumping his dick to the rhythm of her moans. It scratches some of the itch, but it's not the same as being here.

He doesn't want to think about any of that right now, though, not the road or the bus or being on the wrong side of the world without her. All he wants to think about right now is breakfast and more coffee and getting naked again, maybe staying that way until they have to shower and leave for his mom's. His stomach rumbles loudly, making them both laugh and their grip on each other's hands relax.

"Waaaffles," he drones in his best zombie-voice. He holds the door open, waits out the frantic clicking of nails up the steps as the dogs rush past and between his and Jamia's legs, then takes a halting step inside. "Faaacon."

"You still have to set the table, you know."

"Yeah." He takes Jamia's hand again, strokes the back of it with his thumb. She leans into him, soft and warm and sweet, and he grins, leaning back. "I know."


End file.
